


we become nocturnal

by Zofiecfield



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, Feelings, One Shot, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:22:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26001847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zofiecfield/pseuds/Zofiecfield
Summary: Deep sleep is hard to come by these days
Relationships: Waverly Earp & Nicole Haught, Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught
Comments: 6
Kudos: 49





	we become nocturnal

Later, after the battle is over, the darkness comes. The battle, not won, but drawn, sacrifices and losses mourned on both sides, has left you weary and incomplete. 

Sleep calls and your body longs to answer.

To sleep is to be vulnerable, striped bare of your defenses. The war has only just begun, and to lay down arms is an act of trust the world hasn't earned. 

But the night demands, and your fight has been spent elsewhere. No reserves with which to deny it, against your better judgment, you pull her close and sleep takes its due.

As a child, and later as a woman unafraid, you slept like the dead and dormant. But death is too close now for playacting, close and coming closer in unpredictable bounds. A blur in your peripheral vision, never solid enough to defend against, never far enough to forget. Deep sleep is hard to come by now, and too frightening to seek. 

In the middle of the night, when dawn is too distant to provide any comfort, you wake. This hour has grown familiar, though never any less threatening. Though you're heavy and slow with fatigue, you do not have the courage to slip back into sleep, the courage to mock death again. The corners of the room watch you, and the breath on your neck, surely a breeze from the window left open. Chills run through you and you force yourself to say awake. 

Beside you she sleeps still, sprawled across the bed. Peace has abandoned you both. She is restless as she lies, wrestling demons she won't admit to. Eyes search in vain under moonlit lids. Limbs jerk and lips twitch. Worry lines etch across her face, the constant edge of agony.

Night after night, you sit, wary and alone, protector and unprotected. 

You brush your lips to her brow, once, and again. You murmur assurances that don't reach her, and smooth back the damp hair that tangles as she struggles against the sheets. Movements ease under your touch for a moment, but devils cannot be soothed for long. She remains tightly in their grasp.

Night after night, it breaks you to witness. She tosses and writhes, fighting these battles alone. 

She slips farther from you with each moment that passes, pulled further into the night, into the darkness where you can't protect her. You fear, little by little, you will cease to know her. She wears scars from nights like this, scars you see but cannot touch, cannot understand. She slips away from you, and you've done this all before. 

You can't bear it again. 

Night after night, the demons lay their claim.  
Night after night, desperation claws bloody streaks up your chest.  
Night after night, you wake her. 

For a sickening moment, she holds you at bay. You are a stranger and she is lost and terrified in an unfamiliar land. But, in a breath, and on the worst nights, in two, she is yours again. Recognition rises with a rush of relief and she collapses into you.

There are demons still, and waking nightmares waiting, but awake you are together. Asleep you are alone.

Night after night, you kiss her to replace the taste of silent screams lingering on her lips. You press your forehead to hers until the tensions give way, and she whispers your name. Skin on skin and weight on weight, you ground yourselves. Patch and mend your wounds. 

Night after night, you give and take, she gives and she takes. Night after night, you forget long enough to ready yourselves to remember. The war is coming still, battles tireless, eager to break you down. Night after night, you rebuild enough to continue. No longer alone, you steel yourselves again. 

Tangled together, lost in each other and found together, night after night, you survive until the morning. 

Sleep calls again when dawn comes. Only then, sheltered in the light, protector and protected, for a moment, together you find rest.


End file.
